When Tim and I met, we instantly shared this history of having moms who liked cooking because they had moms who liked cooking. We grew up in homes where our families got super jazzed about dinner and would build holidays around what to eat and where. I know there a lot of people like this, probably a lot of the people who read food blogs included, so hi, but I guess there are also a lot of people not like this. Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking a lot about it, our parallel history of loving food, of being loved by people through food. My Italian grandma died sixteen years ago and was part of the reason I later started this site; Tim’s Italian grandma, a sweet, smiling woman who was also from Chicago, died this last month. It’s such a great thing to have an Italian grandma who makes homemade sauce from the tomatoes in her garden and who always has food on hand that she’ll offer you when you come by. It’s such a great thing, it’s almost trite to talk about it. A grandma or a mom or an aunt or a friend who says, from your earliest memories, that her house is your house and you can come there and feel safe. And while Tim’s grandma, like my grandma, was more than just her cooking, she was at least it, too.[Read more…]

If someone had told me there were a way to spend $10 to $20 and get (rich, flavorful) dinners for an entire week, I’d probably have imagined some sort of magic with rice and beans. But, speaking from day five of soups for dinner, I can tell you there’s another option—one that is crazy high in easy-to-absorb calcium, magnesium, and phosphorous, as well as healing for our bones, teeth, and guts: perpetual bone broth.

As I mentioned in the last post, Tim and I left Little Seed Farm last week with more than good memories. James and Eileen had sent us home with a bag of grass-fed beef bones, too, and so first thing Saturday morning I set them on the stove to cook. Making homemade perpetual bone broth truly is as simple as the phrase “set them on the stove to cook,” because all it involves, literally, is placing a pot on the stove (or turning on a crockpot), inserting bones, covering them with filtered water, adding a little apple cider vinegar if you like (to pull out minerals), and adding any other vegetables or vegetable scraps you have on hand. Bring the mixture to a simmer, skim off scum as it collects on the top, and replenish the water as it goes down. In return you get rich, nutrient-dense broth to use in soups as you like.

Over here in the Mallon household, we make broth fairly regularly, almost every time we have meat for dinner I guess, but this week has been my first experience with perpetual broth. Whereas usually I let the bones cook for six to eight hours (as described here) before straining the bones and storing the stock in the refrigerator or the freezer, this time I let it keep cooking, deciding instead to ladle out stock each night for soup from our perpetually cooking pot. The experience has been such a positive one, with comforting, pot roasty soups every night, that I wanted to share about it here. Whether you’ve been making bone broths for years or the idea is entirely new, I hope this post will provide a solid framework for how to do it, why it matters, and ways to use it once it’s bubbling on your stove.

Step One: Get Your Hands on Some Bones
The most common way we make bone broth is with leftover chicken bones from a roast. We tend to stick to our old faithfuls in the meat department, like a salted chicken, cooked at high heat or, terrible as the photos are in this archived post, a version of this, with lemon shoved inside the bird and under the skin, an onion and some herbs and butter alongside it. We cut chicken off to eat, then stick the carcass and bones inside a large pot, following the same basic method outlined above (cover bones with water, add a little apple cider vinegar, simmer for 6 to 8 hours, skimming scum and replenishing water; strain and store). But even without a roast chicken on hand, there are easy ways to get your hands on bones to roast: You can buy them wherever you buy your meat. If it’s from your farmer, you can bet he has bones available. If it’s from your local grocery store, you might find soup bones packaged up in the meat department, but, even if you don’t, you can always ask and see if they’ll wrap some up for you from the back. We look for bones from organic and/or pastured animals that have not been fed gmo grains. A pack of soup bones usually costs $4 to $10, depending on the type and quantity of bones, but especially when compared with expensive cuts of meat, it’s a bargain.

Step Two: Carve out Time
Being that Tim and I both work from home, I prefer to use a stockpot on low heat on the stove rather than a crockpot for stock. That said, Jenny from Nourished Kitchen uses a crockpot method, and she keeps it going all week long. Whichever method you use, two important things to remember are to skim off scum, “Otherwise the broth will be ruined by strange flavors,” says Weston A. Price (think of scum as the undesirable stuff in the food, i.e., impurities, what you don’t need to eat) and to replenish water (as the soup cooks, water will evaporate, and you’ll need to keep adding more so the bones’ minerals can fill it).

What about when I leave the house? go to sleep? We took two approaches here. At night, we covered the stock pots, turned off the heat, and went to bed. This may not be necessary, but we’re paranoid about burning the house down, so it’s what we did. In the morning, we brought the soup to a boil before returning it to a simmer to cook all day. You could also refrigerate the pots while they’re not cooking if you prefer. Bonus with this method: The soup’s fat will rise to the top, making it easy to remove if you prefer a clearer stock (again, it’s a preference thing). For shorter windows of time, when I’d run outside or be gone for a little bit, I’d leave the soup filled high with water on super-low heat, returning it to a simmer when I was home.

Why make stock? The layman’s terms answer is that stock is super good for you. The more detailed, lengthy explanation would be that it’s high in several things that help your health, such as:

1. Glycosaminoglycans (you may have heard of glucosamine supplements) are good for your joints, according to Dr Shanahan of Deep Nutrition: “The health of your joints depends upon the health of the collagen in your ligaments, tendons, and on the ends of your bones. Collagens are a large family of biomolecules, which include the glycosaminoglycans, very special molecules that help keep our joints healthy.”

2. Gelatin (which we’ve talked about a little here and here) is incredibly healing to the gut, so anyone with digestive issues of any kinds (former Crohn’s patient here!), listen up. According to an article at Mind Body Green by Dr. Amy Myers, “The gelatin in bone broth protects and heals the mucosal lining of the digestive tract and helps aid in the digestion of nutrients.”

In sum: There’s a reason greater than tradition for why grandmothers always told us to eat chicken soup when we had a cold. Bone broths can be wonderfully healing, as they are both nourishing and easy to digest.

Especially for women: One last thing about the benefits of bone broth I want to add is that I’ve read a lot about the ways it’s good for women’s health especially (example here.)

What to do with perpetual bone broth? You can sip bone broth on its own, salted to taste, but probably a lot of people won’t be into that. Next best option is soup. This week, for us, every night, that’s been sliced onions cooked in a little bit of broth until caramelized-esque in smell and color, then added to fresh kale and bone broth, with salt to taste. It’s wildly simple and yet wildly deliciously because the bone broth does most of the work for you.

What does bone broth taste like? It depends on type of bones, but this time I thought it tasted like pot roast. Rich and meaty and satisfying.

How do I know when the bones are done? At some point, your bones will become super brittle and dry, and they will no longer be useful. We have had two pots going since Saturday, and, in one, the bones started to disintegrate—enough so that the bones looked like what Instagram friends could only assume was cheese or spongey bread. If you’re not sure if the bones are done, try feeling them with your hands and see if they’re dry and crumbly; if so, strain the soup and quit!

How to store leftover broth? We like to strain the stock and pour it into mason jars. If we’re going to use them within the week, we put the jars in the refrigerator. If we want to save them for later than that, we freeze them (word of caution: don’t fill them too full as the liquids will expand and potentially break your jars in the cold; likewise, let them cool to room temperature before freezing) and thaw when we’re ready to make soup.

So that’s bone broth! Such a marvel to me. Every time we make it, from the simplest to the most elaborate soups that come as a result, I think about that famous quote from Hippocrates, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

disclaimer: It should go without saying, but we’re not writing this post as your doctor or your health practitioner, so don’t take our advice without researching on your own. We’re just sharing what’s worked for us.

Perpetual Bone Broth

Making perpetual beef broth could not be simpler, but it does require time. Before you get intimidated, know that in return for your efforts, you'll gain rich, flavorful stock that is high in minerals, nutrients, gut-healing gelatin, and more. Bone broth is also super affordable when you consider that a handful of bones becomes the base of dinners all week.

Ingredients:

Grass-fed Beef Bones*

Filtered Water

2 to 3 teaspoons Apple Cider Vinegar

Optional: any herbs, fresh vegetable peelings, etc. you have on hand

Directions:

Start by setting your largest stockpot on the stove and setting your beef bones inside. Add enough filtered water to cover the bones completely, and bring the water to a boil over medium heat. Add a few teaspoons of apple cider vinegar, and reduce heat to low, letting the pot simmer, uncovered---for several days and up to a full week. As it cooks, scum will rise to the top; use a spoon to skim it off and discard. Whenever the liquids get low, add more water.

Whenever you want soup for dinner, ladle some broth out of the pot and use it as you like. Continue this process until the bones are completely brittle and dried out, so that you could crumble them between your thumb and your forefinger. According to Nourished Kitchen that brittleness is an indication that the minerals and amino acids you’ve wanted to pull from the bones have been removed, and the bones have done their job for you. (I did this in two pots, and, in one, the bones were dry, brittle, and full of holes in 3 full days. In the other, it took a few days longer.)

Strain the mixture and discard the bones and scraps. Set in glass jars, broth may be refrigerated (for use that week) or frozen (for later use).

*You can easily buy these from a butcher (just ask about soup bones!) or, sometimes, they'll be pre-packaged up at Whole Foods.

Notes

**The amount of stock varies based on the length of time you let the stock go, how much water you add and ladle out for weeknight soups, etc.

This is the soup we've had three nights in a row; it's basically sauteéd onions added to brewing beef stock, with kale and salt thrown in. The broth does all the heavy lifting in terms of knockout flavor, but the added onions take the fragrance up another notch.

Begin by caramelizing the onions in beef broth: In a large skillet over medium heat, warm a tablespoon of the beef broth, spooned right out of a perpetual pot you’ve got going, if you like (or out of reserved stock). Add sliced onions and salt, and stir everything together. Let mixture continue cooking for a few minutes, until the liquids absorb. Add another tablespoon or two of stock and repeat. There will be a lot of sizzling and a wonderful onion aroma flooding the kitchen, and all you have to do at this point is enjoy it and pay attention to the liquids. Any time the liquids have evaporated enough for the onions to start scalding the pan a bit, add more liquids. You can add a lot at a time or a little, but either way, let onions keep cooking in broth until liquids have evaporated and repeat. With 15 to 20 minutes, the onions will have taken on the brown color of the broth and be very soft. Remove from heat.

Place onions in a large saucepan over medium heat and add broth, baby kale, and any other vegetables you’d like. Warm this mixture over medium heat, just until the kale wilts (and any other vegetables are soft). Taste and adjust for salt. Serve topped with garnishes like sprouts, avocado, grated cheese, or on its own.

If you live anywhere near the Midwest and have had to drive to work every day this week; if you shoveled your driveway Tuesday, then Wednesday, and felt your nose hairs crystallize while you got into your car Thursday; if you (heaven, help you) were on Metra Wednesday morning, in the midst of the gun scare that turned out to be just a misunderstanding; this is for you.

[By the way, if you also, I don’t know, had to go out and buy the biggest, cheapest puffy parka you could find, one with a crazy fur collar and an extra layer of lining underneath, just so you could survive through the rest of your Chicago winter: well, send me an e-mail, would you? I’d like to know I’m not alone.]

Maybe it’s the fact that so many of the storms this year have hit during my commutes to and from work, maybe it’s the fact that I am always, no matter where I am, cold, down to my toes. Whatever the case, I have to tell you something: it’s high time for some comfort food.

[I’m glad to know I’m not alone in this, at least.] Yesterday, @ChicagoBites: “I need comfort food but I don’t want to go out to get it.” Well said. Maybe you feel the same?

This pot roast may not be the prettiest, but it makes up for its modest appearance with a very dependable character: you can really count on this one. The first time I made it, I was in college, I think, home for an extended period of time. It was the kind of meal you make when you’re pretty green in the kitchen, not completely sure of what you’re doing. You make it because it’s easy, with a short list of ingredients and an even shorter list of instructions. You make it again, though, (and again and again) because it’s delicious. Really delicious.

Pot roast, essentially, is as good as it gets this time of year (well, short of a vacation to someplace like Miami, but I digress). It’s warm and hearty, paired with chunks of potatoes and chopped carrots, and it’s tender, succulent, flaky, falling onto your fork and moist with its own gravy.

Because it’s so easy, this is the perfect recipe for a lazy weekend: assemble everything into the crock pot before going to bed and have it ready for the next day, or start it all when you wake up and have a satisfying dinner.

It’s the perfect way to get your comfort food without leaving the house, and, let’s be honest, at least around here, that’s what we all need right now.

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"That's at the root of all giving, don't you think? At the root of all art. You can't hoard the beauty you've drawn into you; you've got to pour it out again for the hungry, however feebly, however stupidly. You've just got to." Elizabeth Goudge

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien

"Every kind word spoken, every meal proffered in love, every prayer said, can become a feisty act of redemption that communicates a reality opposite to the destruction of a fallen world." Sarah Clarkson